The Complete Stalky & Co

by Rudyard Kipling

  ‘I was in a bunker, and you knocked into me. Using filthy language, sir!’

  ‘An’ what were ye doin’ in the bunker? An’ which bunker was it?’ Turkey spoke like all the wearied and disbelieving magistracy of the Ireland of those days.

  ‘The Pit,’ said the Ancient, being a golfer—which is to say a monomaniac.

  Turkey came to life with a jerk.

  ‘Bunkered? In The Pit? With this wind blowin’? Goin’ or cornin’ ye could nott!’*

  ‘But I tell you I did’ The other seemed to have forgotten his original grievance.

  ‘Ah, then, ye’re not worth a curse—an’ never will be.’

  Turkey rejoined his companions, to whom Beetle was giving a theory of cause and effect. The four linked arms and swept up the old sunken lane to Coll. Honour was satisfied; there remained but their own young appetites. When, just before last lesson, Beetle connected the rubber tube from the gas-bracket to their dear little stove—turning the jet down to that exact degree which will bring milk-cocoa to perfection in one hour and a half—and counted the potted ham-and-tongue jars, the chicken-and-ham sausage, the sardine-tins, the three jams, the condensed milk, the two pounds of Devonshire cream, and the whole pound of real butter, he would not have changed his lot with kings. Nor, as he went to the form-room, did it strike him that a spare, accurately dressed person standing in the Head’s porch had anything to do with the old goat he had heard, rather than seen, cursing in The Pit.

  Ten minutes before the close of last lesson (their mouths were watering already), Foxy knocked and laid a well-known slip on King’s desk.

  ‘The Head to see,’ King read, and paused to let suspense soak in. ‘Ah! Only our usual three—plus Dickson Quartus. This I fear, portends tragedy. All four of you—at once—if you please!’

  They agreed that, for the first time in their knowledge of him, the Head must have been drunk. Nothing else explained his performance.

  ‘The way he talked was enough,’ said Dick Four. ‘All the studies brew, and he knows it. But he went on as if he’d heard of it for the first time.’

  ‘At the top of his voice, too. When Bates is wrathy, he whispers. But he shouted like Rabbits-Eggs.* That proves it,’ said Stalky.

  ‘Then, all that putrid rot about “the criminality” of havin’ a tube. All the studies have ’em. He said it was theft—of gas! There you are!’ Dick continued.

  ‘An’ his rot about ‘gorgin’.’ He knows we can’t live on the muck they give us. He—he said brewin’ was “an insult to the bountiful provision made for us by the authorities.” Mad! Ravin’ mad!’ This was Beetle’s kinder judgment.

  Turkey scratched an ankle and spoke—

  ‘Authority! He’s never said a word about any authority except himself since I’ve been here.’

  ‘Then you think he’s tight, too?’

  ‘I do not. If he’d drunk enough to make him talk like that, he’d have been lyin’ on the floor to say it.’

  ‘Anyhow, he licked like hell,’ Beetle went on.

  ‘He did nott,* either. His arm was never shoulder-high once.’

  ‘But if he wasn’t tight, what made him count the cuts aloud? No one does that, except Justus Prout,’ said Stalky.

  Dick Four pointed at the untouched table.

  ‘He hasn’t confiscated the grub. Better eat it and have Pussy and Tertius in for cover.’

  ‘Better make sure first,’ said Beetle. ‘I don’t want the Head japin’ with me again just now. I’ll ask Foxy.’

  He found him in the gym as usual.

  ‘No orders about it at all,’ said the Sergeant, and there was an unfathomable twinkle in his little red eye.

  But Turkey sat on the window-seat asking of nobody:

  ‘For what would he be roarin’ like that? The man was out of his nature, I tell ye.’

  * * * * *

  Years—some years—later, Captain ‘Pussy’ Abanazar, R.E.,* seconded for duty in the Indian Political, at home on leave, was invited by the Head to spend a few days of the Easters at Coll., in a mild, early, Devon spring. Half a dozen of the Army Class stayed up to read for near exams, and perhaps as many juniors whose people were abroad. When the last shouting brake-load had left, and emptiness filled the universe, the Head turned into a most delightful and comprehending uncle, so that that forlorn band remembered those Easters through the rest of their lives. And when Captain Abanazar rolled in, and was to each of them equally a demi-god and an elder brother of the right sort (he tipped like Croesus*), their caps overflowed.

  One soft evening in the Head’s private study, with the sea churning up old memories all along the Ridge, Pussy asked:

  ‘Bates Sahib, do you remember lickin’ Number Five and Dick Four for brewin’ in——’ He gave the year and added: ‘My first term as a sub, you know.’

  The Head smiled and nodded.

  ‘And giving ’em a pi-jaw?’

  ‘Pi-jaws aren’t my line. There was a jaw, though. Why? What did they think about it?’

  ‘They didn’t understand it at all. I believe they thought you were tight.’

  ‘Would I had been! But it was worse. It was cowardice, Pussy—it was bowing down in the House of Rimmon.* And they noticed what I said?’

  ‘I should say they did!’

  ‘No wonder! We had a Board of Directors in those days—retired Colonels—martial men with the habit of command. I’m glad I never had that.’

  ‘Yes, we all deplored your lack of it, Sir.’

  ‘Don’t misunderstand me. They were excellent men. I’m sure we were all deeply indebted to them. One of the very best was a Colonel—Coll—Con—wait a minute—Curthwen. But he’s in Abraham’s bosom* now. (Awkward bedfellow!) He knew about education and the prices of things. So useful at Board meetings. I always moved the vote of thanks to him. He was exceptionally nice to me. Advice—the soundest advice. You see, he knew about—er—everything except, yes, golf. He had to come down here to learn that. I only dared go round with him once. I enjoyed it too much. Little runny-nosed Northam caddies told him where to put his horrible feet. Ah! When he came down here, you see, his evenings were quite free, and he could drop in on me at any time, and—er—offer a few suggestions.’

  Pussy shuddered all over; and he was not of the smaller makes.

  ‘Yes,’ the Head mused. ‘It’s a shameful story. That evening, he dropped in complaining that one of us—you—a boy—had nearly knocked him over in a bunker, and then used filthy language… . No. I never found out who the boy was. I could only envy. But the shock and the language—he was, of course, a churchwarden—made him a little—excessive, perhaps. He gave me an hour’s sound advice—with a tang to it. Then I walked with him to the old Fives Court to see him off, but he sniffed like a hound opposite Number Five, and said he smelt gas escaping. (You can’t smell it any other way, can you?) Then he began all over again, Pussy—on economics in the abstract. An eye like a lizard’s. That type have the lust of detail. Yes! After one hour, he began again. Then I lied—as overworked children do.’

  ‘By Jove! I remember your warning me about that, when I worked Lower School too hard at footer. It’s true of men, too.’

  ‘I is. I lied like a scullion—like the hireling that I was! I told him the gas was already shut off from the studies when not required. I think I told him I kept the key of the meter in my—bath-room. I don’t want to think what I told him. He was good enough to say he took my word for it, but——’

  ‘Did he? ’Wish I’d been there. Well?’

  ‘He tracked the stink upstairs foot by foot—like Prout on a moral trail. It was I—I—who threw open the study door to show his suspicions were wrong. And there was that glorious brew laid out on the table, and the tube from the gas-jet to the stove! A tiny, little, bright, blue flame, Pussy. It went wheee—whee, like a toy balloon deflating. That was me! I deflated; he inflated for ten minutes. I am a wicked old man—as you know. I have terrorised infants and perjured myself to mothers, and in
trigued with and against my Staff; but I paid for my sins then, Pussy. You’d have loved it.’

  ‘But I’d have dropped him out of the window first,’ said Pussy.

  ‘Why? He had the obvious right of it. There was the smell. There was the waste. (As a matter of fact, it was traced to the basement.) And, I suppose, there was a chance of burning down the Coll. Then he was shocked at the brew. He said it showed you didn’t appreciate your lawful food. Yes! He sawed at me with his voice Pussy, till I fell. I connived—I confederated with him. I suggested that he should eavesdrop in my private study—yes, here—and listen to what I should say when I sacrificed those innocent children. Thank goodness I have forgotten my discourse, but I know that I addressed them—him, next door, I mean—out of his own Philistine vocabulary. And you say they noticed the falling—off in my style? Aha! Non omnis moriar!’* The Head purred.

  ‘They couldn’t make any sense of it. And did you count the cuts aloud?’

  ‘Very like. Why should I have stopped at any crime! I was playing up to the Board—to appearances—to expediency—to fear of consequences—to all those little dirty things that I brought you children up to spit upon. Except that I didn’t kneel and pray with them—Heavens! he might have exacted that!—there was only one redeeming feature. When it came to the execution, that little red cupboard-door stuck.’

  ‘The rope breaking on the gallows,’ Pussy amplified. ‘It never did with me!’

  ‘And I saw my face in the glass, like an ape’s—a frightened, revengeful ape’s. (And, so far as I have a gospel, it is never to carry things to the sweating-point.) That saved a remnant of my integrity. Saved them something, as well. The licking was a noisy one—for his benefit—but artistically, my dear boy, you understand, a sketch—the merest outline.’

  ‘That squares with the evidence, too. And you didn’t confiscate the grub. I know, because I helped eat it.’

  ‘There are limits to my brutality. Besides, he’d gone to gorge at his dreadful Golf Club; and I could have eaten a horse. But it was all abject—paltry—time-serving—unjust. Not that I believe in Justice, but I don’t like to think that I ever licked out of personal mortification and revenge.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, Bates dear. Those young devils had been out duellin’ in the Bunkers the whole afternoon. Every one of ’em was a casualty as he stood to you. What was our allowance for that?’

  ‘Threats of expulsion—followed by twelve of the best. The young scoundrels! But you’ve taken a load off my mind, Pussy. If I’d known that, I could have paid ’em honourably!’

  ‘Beetle was the chap who attended to your Colonel, too. Stalky plugged him—bending—on the edge of The Pit, and he fell into it, cursing Stalky for all he was worth. The Colonel was bunkered at the bottom. You see?’

  ‘I see. Never again will I hear a word against Beetle—unless I say it myself.’ The Head spoke with genuine gratitude. ‘But how did they hound him into the fray? Was he—er—“decreed a rabbit”?’

  ‘Bates, dear, is there one single dam’ thing about us that you don’t know?’ Pussy spoke after an admiring pause.

  ‘We-ell! It’s a shameful confession, but, you see, I loved you all. The rest was only sending you all to bed dead-tired… . You want a sheet of impot-paper? You know where it lives. What for?’

  ‘I’m going to restore your prestige an’ give Stalky pain. He needs a tonic where he is now, poor devil!… Please, Sir, what are common nouns in io called?’

  What Pussy sent out (as ‘code,’ at State expense) from the overwhelmed little Post Office ran:

  ‘Capitem vidi. Stop. Constat flagellatio Studii Quinti Ricardique Quarti utsi ob caenam vere propter duellum vestrum inter arenas donata fuisse. Stop. Matutinissime si Capitem decipere vis surgendum. Stop. Amorem expedit. Stop. Felis Catus.’1

  What Stalky, doing station-master in a freezing internationalised lamp-room, received, after two or three telegraphists of the Nearer and Farther Easts had had their flying shots at it, was:

  ‘Captain vids. Stop. Constance plageltio studdi quinti ricandk que quälte cuts obscene very prabst duel in vestry iter arimas donala puistse. Stop. Matushima so cahutem discipere via sargentson. Stop. Amend expent. Stop. Felix Cotes.’

  He had trouble enough on his own fork at the time, so, as Pussy foretold, it proved a tonic. The office of origin and ‘studdi quinti’ gave him a bearing, but he upset half the railway system of Cathay,* as then working, to arrive atepigraphists with a College education. A Captain of Native Infantry happened to remember the catchword, ‘You must get up pretty early to take in the Head.’ The rest was combined deductive scholarship. In due time a cable went back, not to F. Cotes, but to the Head:

  ‘ These from Sinim* Stop. Knew it all along. Delighted your character for downiness cleared. Stop. Ours nationally and personally more than indifferent here. Stop. Best loves for birthday.’

  Four or five names out of an Army Class followed in school order.

  Not till several years later did Pussy tell Stalky and the others how they had been deceived; and cruelly rubbed in that ‘Knew it all along.’ As they were, then, far too senior to go to war in the ancient formation, they passed the docket over to Beetle, with instructions to ‘report and revenge.’

  Which had to be done!

  1 ‘Have seen the Head. He says the licking of Number Five Study and Dick Four ostensibly for brewing was really for your duel in the Bunkers. You’ve got to get up very early to take in the Head. He sends love. The Cat.’

  The Last Term

  Rudyard Kipling

  It was within a few days of the holidays, the term-end examinations, and, more important still, the issue of the College paper which Beetle edited.* He had been cajoled into that office by the blandishments of Stalky and M‘Turk and the extreme rigour of study law. Once installed, he discovered, as others have done before him, that his duty was to do the work while his friends criticised. Stalky christened it the Swillingford Patriot,* in pious memory of Sponge—and M‘Turk compared the output unfavourably with Ruskin and De Quincey. Only the Head took an interest in the publication, and his methods were peculiar. He gave Beetle the run of his brown-bound, tobacco-scented library; prohibiting nothing, recommending nothing. There Beetle found a fat armchair, a silver inkstand, and unlimited pens and paper. There were scores and scores of ancient dramatists; there were Hakluyt,* his voyages; French translations of Muscovite authors called Pushkin and Lermontoff; little tales of a heady and bewildering nature, interspersed with unusual songs—Peacock was that writer’s name; there was Borrow’s Lavengro; an odd theme, purporting to be a translation of something called a ‘Rubaiyat,’* which the Head said was a poem not yet come to its own; there were hundreds of volumes of verse—Crashaw; Dryden; Alexander Smith;* L.E.L.;* Lydia Sigourney;* Fletcher and a purple island;* Donne; Marlowe’s Faust; and—this made M‘Turk (to whom Beetle conveyed it) sheer drunk for three days—Ossian;* The Earthly Paradise*; Atalanta in Calydon;* and Rossetti—to name only a few. Then the Head, drifting in under pretence of playing censor to the paper, would read here a verse and here another of these poets; opening up avenues. And, slow breathing, with half-shut eyes above his cigar, would speak of great men living, and journals, long dead,* founded in their riotous youth; of years when all the planets were little new—lit stars trying to find their places in the uncaring void, and he, the Head, knew them as young men know one another. So the regular work went to the dogs, Beetle being full of other matters and metres, hoarded in secret and only told to M‘Turk of an afternoon, on the sands, walking high and disposedly* round the wreck of the Armada galleon, shouting and declaiming against the long-ridged seas.

  Thanks in large part to their House-master’s experienced distrust, the three for three consecutive terms had been passed over for promotion to the rank of prefect—an office that went by merit, and carried with it the honour of the ground-ash, and liberty, under restrictions, to use it.

  ‘But,’ said Stalky, ‘come to think of
it, we’ve done more giddy jesting with the Sixth since we’ve been passed over than any one else in the last seven years.’

  He touched his neck proudly. It was encircled by the stiffest of stick-up collars, which custom decreed could be worn only by the Sixth. And the Sixth saw those collars and said no word. ‘Pussy’ Abanazar or Dick Four of a year ago would have seen them discarded in five minutes or … But the Sixth of that term was made up mostly of young but brilliantly clever boys, pets of the House-masters, too anxious for their dignity to care to come to open odds with the resourceful three. So they crammed their caps at the extreme back of their heads, instead of a trifle over one eye as the Fifth should, and rejoiced in patent-leather boots on week-days, and marvellous made-up ties on Sundays—no man rebuking. M‘Turk was going up for Cooper’s Hill,* and Stalky for Sandhurst, in the spring; and the Head had told them both that, unless they absolutely collapsed during the holidays, they were safe. As a trainer of colts, the Head seldom erred in an estimate of form.

  He had taken Beetle aside that day and given him much good advice, not one word of which did Beetle remember when he dashed up to the study, white with excitement, and poured out the wondrous tale. It demanded a great belief.

  ‘You begin on a hundred a year?’ said M‘Turk unsympathetically. ‘Rot!’

  ‘And my passage out! It’s all settled. The Head says he’s been breaking me for this for ever so long, and I never knew—I never knew. One don’t begin with writing straight off, y’know. Begin by filling in telegrams and cutting things out o’ papers with scissors.’

  ‘Oh, Scissors! What an ungodly mess you’ll make of it,’ said Stalky. ‘But, anyhow, this will be your last term, too. Seven years, my dearly beloved ’earers—though not prefects.’

  ‘Not half bad years, either,’ said M‘Turk. ‘I shall be sorry to leave the old Coll.; shan’t you?’

  They looked out over the sea creaming along the Pebble Ridge in the clear winter light. ‘’Wonder where we shall all be this time next year?’ said Stalky absently.